'GET A LIFE'

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: mousethief
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 01:28 PM

I don't know if I'd go THAT far......

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Bert
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 01:22 PM

AaaaH of course, I was overlooking that. You are right, 'Folk Songs' never lie.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: mousethief
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 01:09 PM

No, Bert, you have made a mistake, albeit a very understandable one.

The song doesn't say "Fish" it says "fishy."

The whale and the barracuda and the shark are FISH; they just aren't fishies.

Alex

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Bert
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 01:07 PM

BUT - there's a song that goes.. "Ye shall get a fishy on a little dishy"

Now there's no way you're going to get a whale on a 'little' dishy. So therefore a whale can't be a fish and neither can a barracuda or a shark. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Bert

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: late 'n short 2
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 10:06 AM

Going back to the original group of protestors, I hope they weren't English teachers. Or should I say "teachers of English" ?

Dan

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: flattop
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 09:20 AM

See Spaw's post above, Crazy Eddie, for the reference on tackle boxes.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: GUEST,Crazy Eddie
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 07:39 AM

Flattop: <<Didn't Old Sam Adams slip anything into the constitution about the right to defend yourself from deer using tackle boxes? >>

Deer using tackle Boxes? Next thing we know, you guys will want the right to arm bears!

---

Crazy Eddie, part of your post was hidden. To display:
< type &lt;
> type &gt;
- JoeClone.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Morticia
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 02:19 PM

There's a photo I never want to see!

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 01:25 PM

LOL! Innuendo at its best, reggie.

A

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: reggie miles
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:08 PM

Joe, I think you can get that poetic license at the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles). I believe the endorsement is a special stamp that goes on your regular driver's license. Spaw may have to fill out an additional form and answer a few extra test questions. I don't think there's an eye exam required for the endorsement. I understand there is an extra fee for the second photo. That camera angle is a bit tricky too.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Bernard
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 11:58 AM

So....

Is 'whalefish' an oxymoron?

Is the instigator of this thread a moron?

Does anyone really give a monkeys?

And what does that mean, anyway?!

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: flattop
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 11:57 AM

Didn't Old Sam Adams slip anything into the constitution about the right to defend yourself from deer using tackle boxes? Or perhaps about eating fellow Americans rather than wasting all that fresh meat?

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 11:12 AM

For all you Pedants out there is Pedantville, the use of the word "fish" is not 'correctly' constrained to the class Pisces. From the Am Heritage:

"4. Any of various unrelated aquatic animals, such as a jellyfish, cuttlefish, or crayfish."

And that includes Whalefish, an honorable term with more honest traditions than pedantry by a long shot!!!

"There's a whale fish!" he cred,
"And she blows at every span, brave boys!"

As for the verb, the Am H provides plenty of justification to go fishing for whale:

1. To catch or try to catch fish. 2. To look for something by feeling one's way; grope: fished in both pockets for a coin. 3. To seek something in a sly or indirect way: fish for compliments. v. tr. 1. a. To catch or try to catch (fish). b. To catch or try to catch fish in: fish mountain streams. 2. To catch or pull as if fishing: deftly fished the corn out of the boiling water.

A

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peg
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 11:04 AM

Jezebel...yes you are right and it is amazing to me that in a few short years students are practically glued to their computers (not to mention their cell phones, etc.)

A few years ago (1988 in fact) I spent a summer studying at Oxford in a summer study-abroad program. We usually had to write at least one paper for our three week seminars. Typewriters were available for our use, or we could hand-write them (neatly!) This was weird but we dealt with it. There was one guy in my T.S. Eliot seminar who could not write his paper without a computer. Just could not do it.

And it was not about needing the Internet for research etc. (which sadly is the trend now; I teach at Emerson College and my students hardly know what the library is). He had learned how to write an essay with a word processor and its cut and paste features and a fast keyboard...but a pen and paper were useless to him. I don't know if he had some sort of learning disorder or cognitive disorder which made him unable to write without a keyboard, but then you'd think he'd be able to use a typewriter...

Sad, really.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: JeZeBeL
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 07:29 AM

PEG- goin back to what you said earlier bout people not avin a life if they stay in ont computer altime, I know u didn't say it personally, but it's my only link to the outside world. Fort u wo describin me!! I'm a student and find it good to sit on the net n 6talk to me mates, cos tis the onli thing i can do when I'm bored o doin me work!! :) We do have lives though us students, tis just we're different to students a few years ago. We are the cyber generation.....god how sad!! Tis only cos we ave to do all our work ont computer...."evrithin must b typed or it won't b graded" etc...........

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Gervase
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 07:11 AM

...and there's Jonah, who lived in a whale, and made his home in that fish's abdomen...
God save us from proseletysing pedants (meself excluded!)

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: kendall
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 07:07 AM

Peg, you also described me, but, it is from choice, so, I dont feel odd at all. So, when did the Ichthyologists decide that whales are not fish? Surely those who went after them probably didnt know the difference? Or, care, even.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: GUEST,Do you mean that in the Midwest sense? if so
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 06:50 AM

..on. I used live in a small town, short way from a big city here in the USA where at the time, the term was very popular. Now this was several years ago so I hesitate to claim that is where it came from, 'but hey' from the same locale - it could!

Typicaly used among certain late teen girls who had already or were in the process of moving out from the parents home. The path at the time was to get pregnant, did not matter how or by who. From this lofty Life they would get Welfare and most important an apartment of their own.

These young ladies then would be described as 'Bimbos', smoking, overweight, unwashed and scantily clad foul mouthed young ladies. Ahem.

If that is what you meant - then it does not apply here!

So what the H****L are you on about?

Hunting the Whale is the correct English.

Nobody uses correct English - that I know or read. Ahem.

You mention some person, any person, heck a Nonperson would have been fine, why mention it at all?

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Gervase
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 06:24 AM

Pat, that's not so wide of the mark!
In my misspent youth, I went poaching with my uncle, using fishing line, a few No16 hooks and some raisins soaked in brandy. You'd flick 'em out into the coverts, wait for the birdies to peck at the raisin and then reel 'em in.
in hindsight it was hideously cruel to the birds (as well as highly illegal), but to an eight-year-old a sackful of free pheasants garnered in almost total silence was an awesome night's work.
And I did catch a sheep last year on a March Brown - the back-cast dropped low enough to snag the fleece of a sheep behind me and the bugger took off, stripping the line down to the backing. Oh, the shame!

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 03:50 AM

Sourdough, I hate to say what happened to me when I read your "TBCOMN." I've been eating Polish Easter borscht.
Hey, how much would it cost for us to buy Spaw a poetic license? Would it help?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Roughyed
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 03:49 AM

How about "while the Bonny Ship the Diamond goes a-fishing for the whale...."

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 02:21 AM

The line "fishing for the whale" can be found in the song "The Bonny Ship The Diamond." If the line's in a song, why should those people in that folk club get away with "correcting" the singer? Hey, if that line's good enough for Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd, ("Whaling Ballads" recording) it should be good enough for the folk clubbers.

But on the question of the 'Cat, I concur with Melani. It's part of my life, a great resource, and a great place to be.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From:
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:40 AM

Well, 'spaw, it's definitely a better idea than trying to go the other way 'round and use buckshot on trout.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Sourdough
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:39 AM

Catspaw49 TBCOMN!!! (The Beer came out my nose!!)

You could say you were stalking the deer.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:36 AM

That sounds like poetic license to me, Spaw.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:32 AM

I was wondering since the state charges so much for hunting licenses, deer permits, and all.....yet a fishing license is cheap. So suppose I took my rod and I baited the hook with a big ear of corn and cast it out into a school of deer and one of them bit on and I was to reel it in and then bash it real good with my tackle box...............Well what I'm gettin' at here is, doncha' think I could get by with only a fishing license?

Spaw

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:27 AM

So it looks like we have 'fishing' in a literal sense, and 'fishing' in a literary sense. Both seem valid to me. I would think that a science teacher would endorse the literal use, while a teacher of English or literature would endorse the literary use.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:21 AM

There's a version of Lady Franklin's Lament that contains the line:

"In Baffin Bay, where the whalefishes blow..."

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Gypsy
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:19 AM

following that, wouldja go sailing for a salmon? Or sucking for an abalone?

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Sourdough
Date: 15 Apr 01 - 12:16 AM

Fishing for Whales: First Prize for Useless Pedantry

I knew that the word, "Whalefish" was familiar. I ran it through the Digitrad and sure enough, what I remembered was Greenland Whale Fisheries.

"There's a whale, there's a whale, there's a whalefish he cried.
And she blows on every span, brave boys"

To my surprise, there were three others "whalefishes", The Whale Catchers, Ranzo, and Blood Red Roses.

While the distinction between whale and fish is important in biology, I think th eteachers could benefit from a class in traditional music.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: GUEST,ceiliwidow
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 10:23 PM

I don't know, guys....seems to me if you can "fish for a compliment" you can "fish for a whale".

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Metchosin
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 10:12 PM

Gee, we have a crab fishery on this coast, never thought of going crusting for a crab though....hmmmm....novel idea....

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 10:06 PM

Hello, I don't understand the criticism voiced by Frug of the club manager who said the band could play again if they played/learned more folk songs. He was insulted because he thought they had gone over well. Speaking as a former booker, there is a difference between - being supportive of very young aspiring musicians and - booking bands for a club.

If you had a rock and roll club, but the band played classical music, and you knew your patrons were primarily looking for rock and roll, would you book the band again? Maybe not.

Likewise, if you had a classical concert series and a band played rock and roll, would you invite them back? Probably not. Is this a surprise?

I don't think it is arrogant to book what your audience is looking for. You wouldn't stay in business if you didn't. Stretching the genre, however, is admirable.

Linda "Thanks, I've got a life" M.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 10:04 PM

Gee 'Dough..........I'd make some smartass comment here, but I'm laughing too hard.................

Can we vote this as the most inane thread of the week?

Spaw

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peg
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 10:01 PM

Sourdough--LOL!!!!!!! Quite right.

I bought a loaf of bread in your honor today...I knew there was a reason for that.

Peg

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Sourdough
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 09:55 PM

Reading the first post made me smile. Isn't it nice that Guest appreciates Clinton Hammond so much. I mean that Guest was able to notice that among all the discussions currently on Mudcat, the hundred of threads, the thousands of postings, Clinton Hammond's shine out so brightly from the rest, enough to pick them out especially.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Ma Fazoo
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 09:36 PM

Cranky Yankee and I have run into more than one "folk music Fascist" in our long , long gig. Sure, some folks just can't relax and enjoy life. I just met the Mudcat folks a few weeks ago and can't imagine where you get the impression that they would deliberately discourage another musician in any way. Some of us, including Jody and me, have warped senses of humor, but at least we HAVE senses of humor. Do not tell me to get a life. We were all given one when we were born and with it the ability to make of it what we will. I do wish you the best, no more thankless gigs, or boring people trying to teach you something. Just all the way you want things.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Matt_R
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 09:21 PM

Thanks! Phew...thought I was beyond all hope!

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peg
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 09:18 PM

Aw, Matt, students are a special case...especially these days (no one had computers when I was in college; now they are a sort of requirement).

Having a social life need not be an organized matter; one can simply try to get out into the world and amongst humans...that seems pretty social to me...

Besides my description could also apply to ME...and to any number of Mudcatters...

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Matt_R
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:57 PM

Sounds like Peg is describing me in particular.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peg
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:50 PM

Interesting, Geordie...

Here it seems people mean, when they say you have no life, that you are single and don't date much (if at all) and don't go out or to parties, etc. and spend too much time on the computer, etc.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: death by whisky
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:34 PM

A Whale is not a fish

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: death by whisky
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:29 PM

BOLLOCKS

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: John Routledge
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:25 PM

Peg - In the UK I understand "Get a life" to mean "Don't become a boring old fart before your time".

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Peg
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 08:19 PM

Don't people this side the pond tend to use "cuz" instead of "cos"???

Just wondering.

BTW the concept of having a life seems to mean having a "social life" with real flesh and blood humans...

As opposed to only socializing online...

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 07:46 PM

I use "cos" too. I think it should be granted official word status posthaste.

- LH

*AWK!!! GET A LIFE!!! GET A LIFE!!! AWRKKK!!! GET A_(Bang!)___AWWWR-R-R-R-K-K-K-!.....(Thud!)_____.

There. One less parrot to listen to. Ah, the beautiful silence...

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 03:40 PM

Some clown trolls, and lotsa people bite. (inluding I)

Seamus

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 12:53 PM

I use "cos" because I like it and it's easier to type than cause. I learned it from Supertramp lyrics. (on topic!)

Alex

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: Matt_R
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 12:47 PM

The term "'cos" is almost exclusively UK usage, so I suppose our Mysterious friend (?) is named Bullock Shite.

Subject: RE: 'GET A LIFE'
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Apr 01 - 12:32 PM

Can I blame it on Reagan then? (evil grin)

Alex